Grammy-winning tabla maestro Zakir Hussain says he is still a student

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Over shut to 6 many years, India-born, United States-based tabla participant Zakir Hussain has launched classical Indian music to audiences everywhere in the world by quite a few cross-genre collaborations and received a number of awards, together with a Grammy.

Yet, regardless of an illustrious profession courting again to the early Nineteen Sixties, he rejects being referred to as a grasp.

“If you think about your self to be a grasp, that you just assume you’ve got carried out the most effective you ever can, you may as effectively dangle up your boots and retire,” the good-natured 71-year-old says in a Zoom interview from his home in Marin County, California.

“That’s not what artwork is all about. Art is not about reaching perfection. Art is about strolling that path in the direction of perfection.”

It is a lesson he learnt from his father and trainer, the late tabla icon Alla Rakha, and a trait he witnessed within the well-known rock musicians he labored with, such because the late Beatle George Harrison.

“All musicians assume they’re college students. My father, each time he taught me, would start by saying this one line: ‘Son, do not attempt to be a grasp. Just attempt to be a good student.'”

Zakir will likely be again in Singapore this weekend to carry out with two different famend classical Indian musicians – veena (Indian lute) participant Jayanthi Kumaresh and violinist Kala Ramnath – in a live performance titled Triveni, which refers back to the legendary website the place three sacred rivers in India meet.

The live performance, a collaboration between the Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society and the Esplanade, takes place on the Esplanade Concert Hall on Aug 14, the eve of India’s seventy fifth 12 months of independence.

Zakir has carried out in Singapore a number of instances. He was final right here in early 2020 for a live performance with Shakti, a fusion group that additionally consists of British jazz guitarist John McLaughlin.

The Triveni live performance tour throughout the US earlier in 2022 bought out all 19 reveals.

“We needed to do encores and that is extraordinary with Indian classical music.”

The music on the Singapore efficiency will equally be a spontaneous “musical meditative journey expertise” that Zakir says will give “a style or a fowl’s-eye view of what Indian music is about”.

The viewers is a key a part of the efficiency too.

“It does depend on the participation of the viewers. I imply, the vibe from the viewers, the best way they nod their heads, the best way they smile, all that contributes in the direction of us having the ability to transfer ahead. If we do not have that acceptance coming our approach, it turns into tough to determine what else are we going to do subsequent.”

Zakir’s accolades from the Indian authorities embrace the Padma Bhushan, the nation’s third-highest civilian award, which he acquired in 2002.

And on the Grammy Awards in 2009, he received Best Contemporary World Music Album for Global Drum Project, his collaboration with American percussionist Mickey Hart from rock band Grateful Dead.

Besides holding concert events and conducting lessons, Zakir continues to launch music. Planet Drum, a music ensemble which Zakir is a a part of, lately launched a new album, In The Groove. He is additionally engaged on a new Shakti album with McLaughlin.

Zakir is hopeful the collaborations between musicians from completely different cultures and genres can encourage hope on this planet.

“Music is our language and we talk with one another in that common vogue. And so all we are able to do by our actions is present the world a template of the way it may be attainable to coexist with one another, in a sympathetic and respectful method, permitting one another house.” – The Straits Times/Asia News Network



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